In the Pines
by Angelycious
Summary: Clementine is left for dead by Kenny and her other group. It is only in her hour of need that she discovers a deeper part of herself she never even knew she had.


**In the pines.**

**Story inspired by the ending credits of the second season of the game. Not knowing what has happened after the second episode, I won't make much mention of it, but it is not really needed for this fan fiction anyway. Please enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: This work is not my own and credit goes to Telltale Games and everyone else involved with this and other productions.**

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Clementine couldn't remember anymore what homework was like, what Christmas was like, what having a family was like. An eleven year old girl in a world with dangers at every turn had to grow up fast and even when she thinks she has no more growing to do, something bad happens and she grows even more.

"Kenny!"

Kenny turned to see Clementine over run by walkers, he moved to turn back, but Sarita tugged him away. "She can't be helped Kenny! Come on!"

Clementine watched on in horror and Kenny and the others made their escape from the ski lodge. "Kenny! Kenny! Luke! Please, someone help me!" But as Clementine looked around, for someone, anyone to save her, she realised that she had no one. She was all alone. _Again._

Squaring her shoulders, Clementine looked around at the slowly encroaching walkers. Snapping and snarling could be heard from all angles. They were running her into the trees. The trees were good. She might be able to do something, if she could just find… Aha!

Clementine jumped around to face the opposite direction, just as one of the walkers lunged at her. Flipping her gun in her hand, which still had one bullet left, that Clementine was going to keep, she stuffed it in her jeans and jumped up. She missed the branch at first and was rewarded for her failure by falling right to the ground. One of the walkers grabbed her foot. Clementine began kicking it.

"No! No! Get off of me! No! Get away!" Kicking it appeared to work, at least well enough to break off the walker's hand. Clementine tried not to think of them in genders anymore. It was too easy to associate them to people once she did that. She couldn't afford to hesitate; it was just like Lee told her. Walkers weren't people, they were creatures that were trying to kill her and she had to make sure she got them first.

Clementine scrambled to her feet and looked up at the tree again. If she missed this jump, the walker's would be too close. She could not miss this jump. Closing her eyes and preying to whatever god was left in this world, Clementine bent her knees slightly and kicked up into the air. To her extreme relief, she was able to grab hold of the branch and shimmy herself upwards. These days her upper arm strength was phenomenal. This branch wasn't very sturdy however and as she moved, she could feel it snapping beneath her weight. She was going to have to keep moving up the pine's length until she could get to a part where she would be able to wait out the walkers. Unfortunately she didn't have any food, so she hoped that she wouldn't have to wait too long for them to leave, or she would surely starve.

"Okay, Clementine, you can do this." She pulled her hat lower on her face and carefully stood up on the branch, using the body of the tree and the surrounding branches as support. She was extremely lucky, she knew, because she had never seen a Pine tree like this before, not one that would actually be low enough for her to climb, or sturdy enough to hold her weight. She was a long, long way, from Savannah.

Reaching the sturdier branches, Clementine looked out over the forest and sighed as she realised she actually had no idea where she was. She didn't know this area at all and she had no maps or compass or anything that might give her an idea of where she was. The Ski lodge was miles away, probably and the so called "safe haven" didn't exist anymore.

"I wish you were here, Lee."

"I _am_ here, Clem."

Whipping around at the sound of a long lost voice, Clementine nearly fell out of the tree. It was only due to Lee rushing to grab a hold of her that she managed not to fall out. "Lee! But, you died, back in that Garage! I saw you… _I killed you._" It was the one thing that Clementine regretted above all others. She regretted that it was because of her, that Lee couldn't be here now.

"I am here. It's me. I swear." Lee held his arms out to her, well, as much as he could in the little room he had. Clementine wasn't sure what she was supposed to do now though. Lee was dead, she was sure he was dead, she had been the one to shoot him, she couldn't just let him die and become a walker. She had seen many more deaths since then, but it was Lee's that still haunted her the most.

"Are you going to hurt me?"

Lee looked at her and frowned, dropping his arms. "No, Clem. No. Why would you ever think that?"

Clementine rubbed her eyes and sighed. "Because in every other dream you always hurt me. You say mean things about me being a killer, about Ben and Omid and last night it was Christa."

Lee shook his head and immediately snaked his arms around Clementine to pull her close. "No you listen to me, Clementine, I would never, ever, ever, do anything to hurt you." He said, hugging her so tight that she was finding it to breath. But Clementine didn't care, this felt so much like how she remembered his hugs, she couldn't bring herself to let him go. "I always kept you safe didn't I?"

Clementine nodded, still refusing to look up, in case the mere action of doing so would cause him to disappear. "Don't listen to anything I say to you that is hurtful. It is completely false. Only listen to my words of encouragement, and my voice directing you how to survive. Okay, Sweet Pea."

Clementine pulled away from him then and smiled up at him. "I missed that. You calling me, Sweet Pea. No one ever called me that, except you."

"I'm sorry, does it upset you, I can stop if you like."

Clementine shook her head. "No, no it's fine, it's… its good. I like it, it… makes me forget."

Lee nodded and pressed his lips to Clementine's head. "I missed you. I will always be here with you though, never forget that, whatever else you do, never forget that."

Clementine grabbed a hold of Lee's hand. He looked down at their clasped hands and smiled at her. "Can you stay with me, please? Until I fall asleep?"

Lee didn't say anything, he just sat along one of the branches and sat back, laying his body out like a pillow so that Clementine could get comfortable. "Thanks, Lee."

Lee shook his head. "Don't mention it. You're my girl, right?"

Clementine nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I'm your girl."

~! #$%^&*()_+

When Clementine opened her eyes, Lee was gone, but so were the walkers. Clementine had thought that it was a dream, but she didn't mind. At least she knew that Lee was watching out for her. She always knew he was, but he was an angel now. And Clementine could think of no better person to be her Guardian, then Lee.

Jumping down from the tree, Clementine proceeded deeper into the pines. She didn't know where she was heading, or where the horde had taken off too, but she knew that she would stand a better chance in here, than she ever would out in the open. Exposure was one of the biggest problems she faced on a daily basis, that and nourishment. Clementine had stopped thinking of it as food a long time ago. Now, she would take whatever she could get, whenever she had too.

The second thing, that Clementine was wishing for right now, was a good jacket. It was freezing. She was honestly surprised that she hadn't frozen to death up in that tree, but it had been strangely warm.

"How you doing there, Clem?"

Clementine froze as she turned around to see Lee walking right behind her. "You're here again?"

Lee smiled. "You gonna fault me for wanting to check-up on my girl?" He asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets and smiling at her.

Clementine shook her head and frowned back. "No of course not. But you are just a dream. Man am I still up in that tree. I don't want to still be in that tree, this was a long walk!"

Lee continued to grin at her until she stopped talking. "Relax; you really did do the walk. I'm just along for the ride."

Clementine sighed and turned to face back in the direction she had been walking before. "Whatever, just stay out of my way, okay?"

"Anything for you, Sweet Pea."

Hidden by the shadow of her hat, a smile touched the corners of her lips. Clementine might have been going crazy, but if this was the result, Clementine was really, quite alright with it.

After a few hours, three walker attacks, a can of bad food and an incident involving Clementine hitting a man over the head with the butt of her gun, Clementine came upon a clearing and it wasn't empty. There was a small group of five people. Three woman and two guys. From what she could see she didn't recognise any of them. They were surrounded by walkers, but they seemed to be doing okay.

"I should just wait here." Clementine suggested to Lee who nodded and sat on the ground beside her, watching the events before them unfold.

The two woman were doing well with their walker's and two of the three guys were okay as well, but one of them - he looked to be younger than the others, though it was hard to tell from this distance - had been cut off from the rest of the group.

"Tommy!" One of the women called to him, but she was too busy to move to save him. The only person, who could do anything, was Clementine. She looked at Lee, but he had disappeared so she looked back to the group and made up her mind.

Emerging from the clearing, Clementine pointed her gun at the walker, though she was unseen by the group and fired. The shot rang out for what she thought had to be miles. When she turned to look at the group, they were all staring at her. She looked down and realised that she was still covered in walker blood from that horde last night. Before they had the chance to point their guns at her, she tossed her now empty weapon aside and held her hands up in the air.

"I'm not bad."

The younger man, who couldn't have been much older the Luke she would think, struggled underneath the walker and Clementine couldn't help but to roll her eyes. Amateurs.

One of the group approached her, an older man, late forties. ""ello there, youngin. My name's Decker, this is my wife Patty and my two daughters Regina and Vivienne. That there boy you just saved is my son, Tommy."

Clementine nodded at each of them in turn. "Hi."

"What are you doing out here all by ye'self?"

Clementine shrugged. "I was looking for...food."

Decker nodded and beckoned to his daughter, the one Clementine was pretty sure was called Regina. "Bring this youngin some food would ya, she's small as a twig."

Clementine didn't say anything, but she lowered her arms as she was handed a half-eaten can of tuna. She raised an eyebrow slightly. She hadn't seen fresh tuna in she didn't know how long.

"How you been surviving out here in these parts by yer'self? You can't be no older'an ten."

"I'm eleven." She corrected them, quite suspicious of this family. There was no way they could have survived by themselves. She looked over her shoulder and once again, Lee was there, but this time he was standing at the edge of the clearing, waving to her. Maybe this was a sign. "My Guardian Angel. He protects me from the bad people." She told them, dipping her hand into the tuna and tasting it slightly. She'd never had tuna before, and it wasn't really that appealing to her, but she had to eat.

"What's your name, Darlin?" Patty asked, walking over to lean down and speak into her eyes. Clementine immediately liked this woman and as she turned to see Lee, he was slowly fading away, mouthing the words, Survive, Sweet Pea. Clementine knew then that this was her place to be. "I'm… Clementine. Clementine Everett."

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**So, there we go then, that was that, thanks for reading and all that. It was a little weird, but it was supposed to be, I was trying to suggest signs of mental and emotion exhaustion with regards to her and the suggestion of a much deeper ingrained mental problem in children that can developed when they are placed in situations of high stress repeatedly. I manifested it in the way of Lee, because I think he was her first real traumatic experience, even including seeing her mother and father as walkers.**

**Thanks for taking the time to read, please review!**

**Angel.**


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